28/02/2025
Reimaging the Mind-Body Connection - A Conversation with Ellen J. Langer, Professor of Psychology at Harvard University.
In this interview I speak to Ellen J. Langer, Harvard’s first tenured female psychology professor and a trailblazer in social psychology, who has spent over 45 years upending assumptions about the human mind.
Known for her groundbreaking “counterclockwise” study—where elderly men reversed signs of aging by living as their younger selves—she challenges the rigid dualism of mind and body. Her latest work, The Mindful Body, builds on this legacy, showing how perception can accelerate healing or sharpen cognition, as evidenced in experiments with rigged clocks and sleep labs. In this compelling interview, Langer redefines mindfulness—not as meditative retreat, but as a vibrant, practical embrace of uncertainty. With disarming insight, she dismantles certainties (1+1 isn’t always 2) and champions “confident uncertainty” as a path to resilience and joy. Her research, spanning decades and earning her accolades like the Guggenheim Fellowship, reveals mindfulness as a tool for vitality—neurons firing, lives enlivened. As the world grapples with complexity, Langer’s ideas, honed through seminal studies like the chambermaid experiment on the nocebo effect, offer a radical yet accessible shift: notice more, fear less. This conversation promises not just intellectual rigor but a tantalizing glimpse into a freer, more dynamic way of being.
https://thoughteconomics.com/ellen-langer/
